七夕

content — a lovely story,
& then an old chinese folk story,
with ageist ableist classist lookist violence {sigh}

in real life, i walked in circles around big houses.

i walked in circles around the neighborhood, trying to find my soulmate, who was supposed to be sitting on a sidewalk waiting for me. i walked in circles for hours, trying to find the right sidewalk, so i could sit next to them. but i couldn't find you. instead, hidden within the shadows of a big tree, tied on a branch slightly taller than me, i found a red ribbon. i lifted myself slightly onto the front souls of my feet so i could reach it, untied the red ribbon, & i took it with me.

in the chinese folk stories of 姻緣紅線 yīn yuán hóng xiàn, the red thread of fate that connects you to your true love, 月下老人 yuè xià lǎo rén, the old man under the moon, the god of love & marriage, tells human beings who is their soulmate.

in the legend, an ambitious young man asks 月老 the old man under the moon, who is his destined true love.

in many similar versions of the story...

月老 shows the young man that his soulmate is a young girl in the village who is poor & devoid of beauty, walking with her mother/caretaker, an old blind woman. 月老 shows him the magical red thread that ties them together: the young man is tied to the young girl by an invisible red string, tied around his pinky finger, stretching to hers.

in every version of the story, the young man is always very unhappy about this. he tells his servant to stab the young girl & the old blind woman to death, because he does not want to marry a poor, ugly girl who is the daughter of an old blind woman, & he wants to prove the prophecy of the 月下老人 the old man under the moon, the god of love & marriage, wrong.

14 years later, the ambitious young man, now a successful government official, is engaged to be married to a beautiful young woman, the daughter of a wealthy governor. he cannot understand why she could not find a suitor before.

on the night of their wedding, he notices that his wife is crippled{reclaimed} & walks with a limp, & that she covers her forehead with a mysterious silk scarf. in some versions of the story, she has a scar on her back.

when he asks her why she wears the silk scarf, she starts crying & tells him that she is actually the niece of the family leaders, not their daughter. when she was a young child, a stranger stabbed her blind mother to death, & then stabbed her, leaving her disabled & barely able to walk. she takes off her silk scarf, revealing an uglybeautiful scar.

her husband realizes that 月老 was right, & he starts crying. weeping, he confesses that he ordered his servant to kill them both, & he tearfully begs his wife for forgiveness.

& she forgives him.

in every version of the story, the young boy foolishly hurts the young girl in his youth, leaving her with an uglybeautiful scar.

& she forgives him.

"the two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, regardless of place, time, or circumstances. this magical cord may stretch or tangle, but never break." {quoted}

* other than the last quote, i worded this version of the story myself, an amalgam of several versions i read.

before anybody comes at me, i KNOW that this isn't the story of 七夕 {the title of the post}, nor is today the real 七夕, omg. for those unaware, 七夕 is a holiday about a different chinese folk story.

i also intentionally use the word "ugly" to mean: beautiful & flawed/imperfect, because *nothing* in this world can ever be "perfect".